Failed Payment Notifications

When a payment fails — whether from Autopay, a staff-entered payment, or a parent paying online — Campflow can automatically notify the right people. You control who gets notified, how they’re notified, and what the message says.

This section lives at the bottom of the General settings page. Click Settings in the sidebar, then General, and scroll down past the Accepted Payment Methods section.

Three Payment Scenarios

Campflow separates failed payment notifications into three categories because each scenario may need different handling:

• Autopay Failures — Scheduled automatic payments that fail. These happen in the background, so parents may not know unless you tell them.
• Admin Payments — Payments entered by your staff that fail (for example, running a credit card on behalf of a family).
• Parent Payments — Payments that fail when parents pay through a registration form or payment link.

Each category has its own settings, so you can notify parents about Autopay failures but skip notifications for admin-entered payments, for example.

How to Configure Notifications

Each of the three categories has the same three settings:

1. Notify Parent — Choose who receives the notification:
   • Don’t notify — No message is sent to the family
   • Father only — Only the father is contacted
   • Mother only — Only the mother is contacted
   • Both parents — Both parents are contacted
2. Method — Choose how the notification is sent:
   • Email — Send an email
   • SMS — Send a text message
   • Email & SMS — Send both
3. Also notify admin — Check this to send a separate notification to the camp admin email address whenever a payment fails. This is useful for staying on top of payment issues even when parents are also being notified.

Email and SMS Templates

Below the three notification cards, you’ll find the templates used for all failed payment notifications.

Email Template

The email template is a rich text editor where you can format your message with headings, bold text, links, and images. A default template is provided that you can customize.

You can use merge tags to personalize the message. Click the merge tag button in the editor toolbar to insert placeholders that automatically fill in each family’s details:

• {family_name} — The family’s last name
• {camp_name} — Your camp’s name
• {camp_phone} — Your camp’s phone number
• {camp_email} — Your camp’s email address
• {payment_amount} — The amount of the failed payment
• {payment_method} — The payment method used (Card, ACH, etc.)
• {last_four} — The last 4 digits of the card or account number

SMS Template

If you have SMS set up (see Setting Up SMS & Voice), an SMS template section also appears. This is a plain text message — no formatting, just text and merge tags. The same merge tags listed above are available.

Good to Know

• SMS notifications are only available if you’ve set up a phone number in Communication settings. If you haven’t, a warning message will appear at the top of this section with a link to set one up.
• The email and SMS templates are shared across all three payment scenarios. If a parent receives a failed payment notification from Autopay and from an admin payment, both use the same template.
• Admin notifications are sent to the camp email address you set in the Camp Information section at the top of the settings page.
• Failed payment notifications that go to parents are also logged in the family’s collection history, so you can see a record of what was communicated.
• Don’t forget to click Save Settings at the bottom of the page after making changes.